Sharpening Stones
by Sublimey
Summary: Iwa made him their Jinchuuriki. It was only a matter of time before they realized Kenta would never be what anyone asked for. (Unless you were Deidara) Male! SI OC
1. Chapter 1 - A Dying Sun

**AN:** This has been sitting in my drafts for about a year now, I thought I'd upload it and see what people think of it—if it's worth following up at all, tell me in the reviews. I haven't seen many male OC fics, and none at all from Iwa, and this idea has been following me for a long time. It'd be fun to see where it goes. Enjoy!

 **Edited** by the incredible Iaso! go check out her story, _**Fade To Black**_ if you like awesome SI stories with amazing writing and plenty of Shikamaru ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 **Word count:** 3,882

 **Disclaimer of disclaimers:** The story of Naruto ain't mine, but this fic, it's original characters and plot devices belong to me.

 **.**

 **Chapter One - A Dying Sunset**

 **.**

The sun had just risen above the cold mountain tops of the land of stone, and Han, Jōnin of Iwa and Jinchūriki of the steam, was dead.

It had happened in the evening. His body had been found near the eastern gates, broken, beaten, hardly alive, but he had been breathing. Barely holding on.

He had dragged himself through the hard rocky terrain nearly twenty miles with an exposed abdomen, fractured skull and crushed rib cage, but he had put down an entire platoon of enemy Shinobi specially designed in taking him down. The bodies he had left behind said as much. To most, it looked like Han had been targeted by headhunters. Nin with specialized skill sets that went after high-ranking shinobi with the intent to cash in on the rewards posted by other cooperating countries. It was a common practice. Any talented Jōnin could fall victim to hunter-nin if caught unaware.

But it was _Han_. Human container of the five tails. He stood seven feet tall and had enough power to make mountains move with a single motion. The man was a legend, he wasn't _supposed_ to get caught off guard. How would competing nations react if they heard Iwagakure was down one of their strongest warriors?

They couldn't let his name die with him the following morning. The five-tailed-beast would have to find a new host and another Han would have to be found.

"Records states that, while he had no immediate family of his own, Han does have a surviving cousin, my lord."

Ōnoki, Kage of Iwa for nearly sixty-five years, narrowed his eyes at the chūnin in front of him. "That's the best news I've heard all day, but why do you look so…" Ōnoki gestured up and down the assistant, "... put off?"

The assistant glanced down at the file in front of him, before passing it over. "He's… uh…" the young man cleared his throat. "Ishikawa Ken'ichi, age six, born out of wedlock to Natsuki Kojirō and Ishikawa Junko, who died shortly after childbirth. He currently resides on the southeast side of the city with his great aunt. He, uh, well, medical records existing in-village state that… well, he's—"

"Just say it." Ōnoki scowled, pulling the file closer to him.

The boy's picture was rather standard; dark hair, olive skin, features common to Iwa, if not the rest of the northeastern countries. Ōnoki took a second look, scanning the child's face and… the child had Han's eyes, that was for sure. A deep scarlet brown, unremarkable at first, but coupled with the boy's empty expression… they felt hollow, yet strikingly perceptive. His other features barely resembled Han's visage, but the Jōnin's face had never been closely documented by outside forces. In truth, the Jinchūriki's identity was hardly known within Iwa either; after his status as human container had been revealed, all he had been known for was his ability to keep the five tails contained, and his brilliant scarlet armor. And, well, those eyes of his.

No person alive forgot the intensity of Han's stare. Enemy and ally alike swore that his glare could make a mountain crumble under the pressure. It was one of the reasons why his loss was such a setback. Public liaisons went infinitely more smooth with a seven-foot behemoth staring holes in the back of their heads. He was the Hammer of Stone, unbreakable in battle, unyielding. One didn't have to know a thing about him, other than feel his presence as he entered a room, to know that he was an unstoppable force of nature. One of Iwa's finest weapons—

And now…

Ōnoki sighed and leaned back in his chair, the photo of Han's only living relative staring at him plain in the face. Scanning the paragraphs of written text underneath the boy's picture, it became clear what the chūnin was talking about.

"He's disturbed?" he observed.

"Well, it's not exactly proven yet by doctors," the chūnin said, sweating when he saw Ōnoki's scowl deepen. "He seems to test very well in civilian classrooms at least. If he showed any interest in shinobi culture I'm sure he'd be considered a prodigy with how advanced his scores are!"

"His guardian stated that the boy believes himself to be nineteen years old, a practicing novelist, and—" Ōnoki shook his head and tossed the paper aside. "He's completely disillusioned with reality and the state of the world… You're sure Han has no other living relatives to choose from?"

The chūnin fidgeted and looked through his notes again despite the fact that they both knew the answer to Ōnoki's question. "I—I'm afraid not, my lord…"

The Kage sighed. "Then there's no other vessel for the five tails." He shook his head and folded his hands on his desk, peering out the window as Iwa gradually began to wake up.

It had been five hours since Han's death. While Ōnoki would have preferred to give the man's corpse time to cool before discussing who would take his place, the fact that they now had a tailed beast and nothing to contain it with rushed matters. There was the safety of the village to think of, and the possibility that the Gobi could go running rampant across the country as soon as the seal keeping it bound to Han's body broke down.

And it _would_ break down.

They had a day. Perhaps less, the way things were going.

Sealing methods hardly kept working when the very surface they were printed on deteriorated at just the same speed as the ink tattooed across it. Decaying flesh was not an optimum surface for keeping images and sealing arrays stable. They could only refrigerate and use chakra for so long before the Gobi figured out what was happening.

Usually, when a Jinchūriki died in the line of battle, tailed beasts died with them. After several years or several months, depending, the beast would reappear and be free to walk the countryside until it was captured again. This situation… was a little different. They had enough luck to get Han before his final moments and contain the beast inside him, but after he passed away, it meant they were keeping the tailed beast locked up in his body. Hovering between life and death. If the Five-Tails escaped, Ōnoki didn't want to imagine what sort of state of mind the creature would be in. If living chakra could speak—and they knew they were capable of it, despite being mindless beings of chaos that they were—the Gobi would most likely take one look at the world around it and try to tear the earth from the sky in its rampage.

It was a headache and a half of manage, but somehow, Ōnoki had to make things work. He could already feel his back stiffen and creak in protest to all the moving around he would have to do in the nearby future.

"Disturbed…" He sighed, running his hand through his beard, deep in contemplation. He took Ken'Ichi's photo out of the folder and held it up to the light so he could see it better. Soft face, rosy cheeks… Hollow eyes. Ōnoki gestured to his assistant's attention once again. "We'll find around this small issue. For now… I need some time alone to compose a letter."

.

"Oh, fuck off."

Kitsuchi was a man of many talents. He had often been referred to as disciplined, patient, adaptive, and willing to cooperate in difficult situations, along with praising his humility and restraint when dealing with troublesome missions. Despite being the Tsuchikage's least favorite son in law, he was willing to fulfill whatever request the old man asked of him, _especially_ if the mission was of the utmost importance.

Ken'Ichi Ishikawa was trouble the moment the two made eye contact.

"I'm going to close the door now, and you're going to leave me alone."

"Hey—!"

The boy was just a couple months past his sixth birthday; he wasn't particularly strong, and from what Kitsuchi could sense from the child's chakra coils, they had remained relatively untouched, with no history of training from what the jōnin could remember from his mission briefing. It took only a fraction of his strength to stop the child from closing the door on him, and the man shot Ken'ichi an unimpressed scowl when the boy tried to slam the door on his outstretched foot.

"Ishikawa-san, I'm here on behalf of the Tsuchikage, may I please—"

"I told you to _fuck off_. I'm not joining the academy, so you can just go back to your little friends from the recruiting office and tell them that you're going to have to postpone your group _dick sucking session_ , I'm not buying into your _system of oppression_."

It was worse than Kitsuchi had feared. "I think you're misunderstanding the situation—"

"Oh, _my bad_ —" The kid threw his whole body against the weight of the door crushing the life out of the jōnin's foot, but the older man seemed apathetic to the assault. Like a mouse attacking a mountain. It seemed only to aggravate the boy further. "Let the record state that I meant that I meant you'd be post _boning_ the group sex you degenerates get up to after tricking children into throwing their lives away. You might have tricked the other kids, but I'm a citizen of the elemental nations, and I have a right to refuse your bullshit agenda—!"

A very long, aggravated silence followed, while Kitsuchi rubbed his temples and wondered where his life went wrong for him to get saddled with this mission, interrupted only by the sounds of an angsty six year old repeatedly slamming the door against the jōnin foot in an attempt to discourage him.

Eventually, the kid just got too tired to keep going and Kitsuchi pushed open the door to see Ken'Ichi struggling to catch his breath on the floor. The child looked up at him with weary eyes, his chest heaving in between deep gulps of breath. "Y—you're a freak. Do you h—have steel toed shoes or something? What kinda guy just lets someone wail on them like that."

"Was I supposed to get hurt by that?" Kitsuchi allowed himself the small pleasure of soaking up the brat's expression. The taste of defeat was all the sweeter on people who annoyed him, and this kid made the list. Keeping his face neutral the jōnin bent down so the two of them were eye level and tried again to appeal to the boy. "I'm not here to recruit you, the Tsuchikage specifically requested your presence—"

"—this isn't because of my poetry, is it?' the boy blurted out, quick to interrupt. A second and a vacant, questioning look from Kitsuchi later, Ken'Ichi continued. "I have a right to freedom of speech, just because it's anti-establishment doesn't mean _The Man_ can silence me!"

' _I am a man of discipline,'_ Kitsuchi had to remind himself as he ground his teeth together and stood up. _People admired him_. He was given this mission from his Tsuchikage because people respected him, and thought he could handle the job. He would not let his stepfather down.

Kitsuchi struggled with the desire to simply pick up the kid and carry him to Ōnoki's office. Preferably with a rag stuffed in his mouth. "This is a top secret matter pertaining to your family line. Is your parent or guardian present?"

"What, nana?" Ken'ichi's face suddenly went blank. "No, never. She's not here and she won't consent to you taking me away somewhere. Now, if that's all—"

"Kenta? Is someone at the door?" an elderly voice called from the back of the apartment.

Ishikawa's eyes were wide and his head snapped back to the sound of shuffling and joints cracking. "Nobody's here! Go back to your chair, there's nothing that concerns you at the door!"

"If I want to walk to the front door I won't have you trying to stop me—" The boy disappeared from Kitsuchi's line of sight only to reappear a second later, trailing after a old woman with comically wide circular glasses and a bun with far too many strands of white hair falling out of place.

Compared to her great-nephew, the two were polar opposites. While they shared the need to wear glasses, Kenta opted for sharp, hard-edged ones and kept his hair controlled, cut short, and—who decided to chop off all the child's hair into some sort of unfortunate… bowl cut?

Despite Ken'ichi's unfortunate… hair situation… The two were hardly looked like they shared anything in common. It didn't surprise Kitsuchi that they immediately started to argue with one another.

Maybe if he started over from the beginning that would calm them down?

"Ishikawa-san, I ask for your permission as Ken'ichi's guardian to relinquish him to me so that he may seek an audience with the Sandaime, as it of the utmost importance he does so immediately."

Silence followed.

"Say again?" The old lady smiled tightly, her wrinkled hand finding Kenta's shoulder and squeezing the boy's shoulder with a surprising strength.

Kenta's face was ashy, and he looked up at his guardian with a creeping sense of dread. "Nana, don't you dare—"

She didn't listen to him. "What do you plan on doing with him, if I may ask, shinobi-san?" Her eyes seemed to twinkle as if Kitsuchi had given her an opportunity she had long waited for.

"W—well, actually, it's not me who plans on doing anything, I'm just acting as the Sandaime's mouthpiece," he quickly said, backpedaling. Kenta stared both adults down with copper red eyes and a gaze so sharp it made Kitsuchi uncomfortable. "And I hardly think that the Tsuchikage means for you to sign over custody—"

"Nana," Kenta said between his teeth, a warning tone to his voice.

The old woman's glasses flashed. "But if I did have to sign something, would I have to go somewhere? Sign certain things? Or is this just word of mouth… I assume whatever you need Ken'ichi for has to do with his _unholy heritage_ , yes?"

"Unholy heritage? Is that really appropriate…?" Kitsuchi shifted uncomfortably at their doorstep. "Maybe we could continue this conversation inside, Ishikawa-san, this isn't something that can just be talked about out in the open…"

"Just take him, he's yours." She pushed Kenta forward and outside the house. "You have no idea how much of a pain this kid is. Ever since he ended up in my care… mind you, I never asked to look after him in the first place. It's not my fault his mother went and got herself _knocked up_ —"

"—okay, Nana, he gets it," Kenta said with a huff, staring at the old woman over his shoulder. He pointed to the doorknob as he stepped over the threshold and towards Kitsuchi's side, his arms crossed over his chest. "Make sure you remember the deadlock when you close the door and lock it. And watch out for that plant you knocked over while I'm gone."

The elderly woman harrumphed and bid the jōnin a pleasant goodbye before she slammed the door behind her.

Kitsuchi found himself gawking at the woman's chilling display of familial loyalty before he noticed the six-year-old by his side shake his head, the sound of deadlock clicking into place.

"She never remembers to lock the door when I leave," the child said, sighing.

"You… don't seem bothered by your aunt giving you away…? Just like that…?" The jōnin eyed the child with a cautious look.

Kenta pursed his lips and craned his head up to stare at Kitsuchi's face, outlined by the sun behind him. "You think you're the first person she tried to give me away to? Aunt Aiko is senile, she doesn't even like me on a good day. You're not that special."

Kitsuchi fought the urge to rub his temples again, but at least he had somewhat completed the first part of his mission.

"We're not going to be friends," Ishikawa said as the two of them left the tiny little apartment complex and made their way towards the Tsuchikage's office. His eyes roved over Kitsuchi's face and seemed to find something in it, as he eventually shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets, continuing. "But you can call me Kenta."

"Under normal circumstances, I would say that it would be nice to meet you," Kitsuchi allowed, nodding his head at the boy, "but coming across you has been nothing but a pain so far. If we speak after this, you will address me as 'sir', and leave it at that."

"Right, _of course,_ " Kenta said seriously, though the silence that stretched out afterward and his sarcastic expression spoke otherwise.

They walked quietly towards their destination, interrupted only by the sounds of other villages passing by.

Kitsuchi sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He felt kinda bad for being a hardass to a boy who wasn't even old enough to properly tie his shoes. Though, now that he thought of it, Kenta did seemed more mature than other kids his age. Perhaps he had to grow up sooner because of his aunt's failing health…?

"So…" Kitsuchi muttered, trying to fill the awkward silence that had settled in between them. "You write poetry..?"

Kenta's face lit up immediately. "I do! The one I'm working on right now is called 'Suffering, Thine Every Breath A Living Torture' and it's about capitalism and how it espouses a sense of false consciousness that allows the oppressed classes to accept and perpetuate their own subjugation. You wanna hear some?"

"No, I definitely do not, thank you, but—"

"The milk has curdled, gone sour in the carton, and yet The Man puppets the world, demanding that I see it as _cheese—_ "

Kitsuchi didn't know what he did to deserve the Tsuchikage's wrath—or no, perhaps he did. Perhaps he went wrong first dating Ōnoki's daughter, or perhaps this was simply the old man's way of getting back at him for that one time he walked in on the two of them together. Whatever the case was— _revenge_ , or a sense of vindictive sadism brought on by old age—he hoped that this was the only time he would have to bow to the Tsuchikage's will, because Kenta Ishikawa was…

" _Oh tepid fate_ , how my production lays among a line like that of a machine, the system an ever cruel unyielding assault _to my young mind_."

… something else entirely.

The second Kitsuchi was done rubbing his temples and plugging his ears, he opened his mouth to tell the kid to tone it down when they got to the Tsuchikage, only—

" _Shit!"_

Kenta had slipped out of his grasp and snuck into the populated market of downtown Iwa, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust and the memory of his poorly constructed anti-establishment poetry behind.

Kitsuchi was already at his breaking point.

.

The land of Earth was vast in size and diverse in culture, perhaps not as much as the Land of Lightning, with its rampant kidnapping and adoption policy, but diverse nonetheless. Among its inhabitants were people of many clans and statures, though their population consisted primarily of those native to the rigid landscape and large stone fixtures. They had a booming tourist industry that welcomed travelers from many distant parts of the globe.

While the land was often dominated by mountain ranges and large, barren swatches of land untouched by farmers due to its too-hard soil, many members of the country relied on the protective rock walls for shelter, housing, and protection from the elements. And so, it wasn't an unexpected sight to see windows and portholes within the mountains themselves, as a vast organization of buildings and homes were carved deep into the side of otherwise sheer cliffs and empty stone walls.

Roshi, Jinchūriki of the four-tailed Bijuu, was not unknown to these cliffside residences. The wooden bridges and elevations provided an exciting and interesting way to leave uncomfortable situations when needed. Angry ex-lover? Toss yourself out of a window. Disgruntled old landlord wondering where you've been for years? Toss yourself out of a window. Problem solved. Roshi was a paragon of avoidance tactics. Though he was known within the country as the container for the 'handsome monkey king' Son Gokū, Roshi enjoyed his privacy and the time he could spend alone, preferably in quiet contemplation.

The _tap, tap, tap_ of a carrier bird at his window broke a six-hour session of silent meditation, and it was only until the infernal pest started scraping against the glass did Roshi exhale and get up to put the thing out of its misery.

He noticed the purple marker of the Tsuchikage attached to the bird, and quickly released the tag containing the creature's message, unsealing the scroll to read the scrawl that Roshi recognized as Ōnoki's writing style.

The letter was brief, and urged him to return to the capitol as soon as possible, only giving minor allusions to what was really going on. Roshi knew better than to accept the idea that the message wasn't in code—there were few reasons for the old man to contact him after the Jinchūriki made it perfectly clear that he wanted time and space away from Iwa to reflect on his actions in the past war. He had _earned_ the time off, and while he knew that he was still a tool of the country, he also knew that the peace he and the other Jinchūriki shared were only an illusion. They were objects of mass destruction, meant to be called upon in great times of need. There were only a few reasons for the Tsuchikage to request the presence of Roshi on such a short time limit.

Either they were going to war again, or something had happened to the other Jinchūriki. And since Roshi had been operating near the border and had seen no tell-tale signs of conflict brewing, it could only mean that something had happened to Han.

There was a number of possibilities at stake. Roshi only hoped that Ōnoki's summons was well-intentioned as he hoped.

… but Roshi had been a tool of Iwa for over forty years. He knew better than to accept a cause at face value. Like the stone mountains, the country owed its namesake for, even the hardest rock was capable of concealing great sprawling cities. Anything could be lying beneath the surface.

 _What's really going on, Ōnoki?_

One would have to wait and see. Thankfully, Roshi had learned to be a patient man.


	2. Chapter 2 - Rock Bottom

AN: hey, people like this story! Sorry to keep you pending, school has been really hassling me. This is a good fic to vent my frustration on though! Hope you guys wanted angst, arguing and, like,

A lot of swearing

(whoops)

Word count: 2,708

 **.**

 **Chapter 2 - Rock Bottom**

 **.**

"I refuse your offer and would like to go home now."

"Ken'ichi-San-" the Tsuchikage had taken off his glasses and set them on his desk in favour of rubbing the bridge of his nose. By the pinched expression on his face, one could tell that a headache was forming.

Everyone in the room knew what the true cause of his headache was, but nobody had the guts to outright say anything. _Cowards._

The source of the problem sat with his arms crossed, staring Ōnoki down with puffy cheeks and a scowl so severe it must have been practiced in front of a mirror a dozen times. A length of shinobi wire kept him in place after he had kicked several of the adults in the shin, made two attempts at punching one man in the groin, and all the brat did was sneer at the Tsuchikage's attempt at diplomacy. The door frame still bore his fingernail marks from when Kitsuchi dragged him in. Any other person would have been embarrassed, if only the kid didn't have such a self inflated ego.

"It's Kenta." As if ignoring the physical restraints completely, he blew a strand of hair out his face and continued to to glower at the adults in the room. " _Thanks_."

"Of course, Kenta-san. _My apologies_." Ōnoki cracked his knuckles under his desk and gave the boy a tight lipped smile. "Though, as you already know, we're not here for _pleasantries_ —"

"—yeah, you wanna put a fucking demon inside me. I know what's going on, you're a bunch of assholes dancing around a subject trying to figure out the best way to manipulate a six year old. Big whoop." The silence in the room was thick enough to cut in half. Kenta's head swivelled around as he eyed each of the bodyguards, councilmen, and advisors with his coppery eyes. "Well you can all go to hell for all I care—"

"Kenta-san, I assure you—"

"You people make me sick. If I had the use of my arms, I'd take you all on, right here, right now—"

"This isn't the time for threats, Kent—"

"And you know what? I'd take on your wives too. And your kids. And your grandparents. Screw all of you, for forcing me into this room. You're a bunch of _fucking monsters_ —"

"Kenta-san—"

"I didn't even ask to be born in this country! I don't deserve to be treated this way! You're all sheep! You're complicit and unthinking! You bunch of bloated bureaucratic self _serving sycophants_ —"

" _That is enough!_ " Ōnoki bellowed, slamming his fist into his desk. The nearby shelves rattled from the intensity, and Kenta's eyes opened wide, the chill of killing intent bleeding the colour from his face and stunning him into silence.

The Tsuchikage cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes at the boy as the other better trained shinobi fell back into position seamlessly. "Ishikawa-san."

" _Kenta_." The boy automatically corrected, unthinking. His voice had lost most of its bravado.

Ōnoki let out an irritated huff and carried on. "You must come to understand the gravity of the situation. This isn't about some sort of _vendetta_ you believe we may have against you, this is about _Iwa_."

Kenta shifted uncomfortably in his chair, saying nothing.

"The safety of the village hinges on someone becoming the new container for the five tails. We _need you_ to cooperate with us."

"Why does it have to be _me_?" Kenta squirmed under the ninja wire keeping him in place, as if the thought of the five tails made him want to flee the village in horror. "Why do _I_ have to suffer?"

"Who told you that you'd be _suffering_?" Ōnoki shot back, annoyed at the child's lack of faith in them. At his side, two of his advisors shared an uneasy look. One of them looked as if she were about to add something, but the Tsuchikage swiftly cut her off. "In _this_ country, we take care of our own. We aren't going to turn you into a monster, that isn't our goal here. You'd be doing a great service to the village and its inhabitants." He paused, trying to gauge how much he was getting through to the boy, and decided to change tactics. "I understand that you live with your only relative, and that she requires constant looking after, correct?"

Kenta stopped his struggling and watched the Tsuchikage with questioning eyes.. "Well, uh… I mean, yeah. Nana can't always remember where she is, she thinks I'm breaking into her house because she doesn't recognize me, or she thinks I'm one of my relatives. I can handle her though, she's _not the problem here_ , as opposed to, say, your _goon_ showing up at my house and fucking dragging me here against my will."

Ōnoki leaned forward in his chair, weirdly confident now, throwing off Kenta's understanding of where this conversation was leading. "Does she ever mistake you for your cousin?

"What, Han?" Kenta made an awkward motion of shrugging while under so many layers of ninja wire. He felt uneasiness stir in his gut. "Sometimes, I guess…? she also mistakes me for my _mom,_ and she tells me not to talk to any men or else I might get pregnant." He shot the Tsuchikage a flat look. "I'm not my relatives, _obviously_. I want nothing to do with them or their _cursed bloodline_."

"Cursed?" One of the councillors asked aloud. His associate elbowed him in the side.

Kenta strained again against the shinobi wire, his little rectangular glasses slipping from his nose. "Can I just go home, please? I'm sure you can find someone else _much better_ suited to be your human sacrifice. I'll be good, I won't curse anyone else out. I'll even apologize to some of your mothers for the things I said about them."

Ōnoki raised an eyebrow. "Only some?"

"Some of them are probably actually sons of cucks. I won't take back what's true."

The Tsuchikage closed his eyes and rubbed his temples again. His headache had not subsided yet in the slightest. "Of _course_ , I'm _sure_ you know best, _Ken'ichi-san_ —"

"Are you doing this on purpose? It's _Kenta_ ," the six year old shot back without missing a beat. His lip curled in annoyance. "and of course I do _."_

"You have my sincerest apology." Ōnoki gestured to one of his guards with one hand. "Cut the brat free."

"Wait—" Kenta blinked in confusion. A second later, he could freely move his arms again and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "What?"

"Tell me," Ōnoki levelled with his, eyes sharp as he peered at him from his wide desk. "Is that why you decided to change your name? The one thing you parents have you, but you cast it off, all because you know better than they do, correct?"

"Well, yeah, obviously," Kenta scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. His bravado had come back in full force. _What did this guy care?_ Kenta didn't even know his parents from this life. "You have absolutely no idea—nobody knows more about anything in this world more than I do. I didn't _choose_ to get called a stupid name, but I _can_ change if I want to. It doesn't matter."

"I see…" Ōnoki knit his hands together and leaned back in his chair. Around him, his council men and women shifted uncomfortably. "So then I assume you, of course, know what's best for your future?"

"Becoming a human sacrifice is the last thing I ever want to be. I don't wanna die a horrible death, so _yeah,_ of course I know what's best for my future." Kenta leaned back in his chair, ignoring the hard stares from the adults around him. "What's your point?"

"You deny the position of Jinchūriki, knowing ahead of time that your service would be honoured by this country, and that I, the Tsuchikage, personally spoke with you, to ask if you would take on the duty of becoming the host of the five tails. A duty your family line is known for—a duty your own cousin _died protecting_."

"Am I supposed to care about that?" Kenta gave the old man a blank stare, oblivious to the judgemental eyes of the room. He watched the Tsuchikage's hands, calm, unmoving. _What was this guy's problem?_ "They're not my real family. It doesn't matter to me what ideals they held."

"Ah, right. Your _real family_." Ōnoki had a quality to his voice that reminded Kenta like a cat about to pounce. "Tell me, do you also feel as though you know what's best for your _Nana_? Or are you willing to throw her under the bus along with all the other men, women and children in this village? None of them _matter_ , right?"

The old man's eyes were piercing—looking straight through him as if Kenta was made of glass. He struggled to come up with a good enough retort in time.

"So why should _your life matter_? What makes you _so special_?"

The young boy swallowed heavily. _Was that more killing intent, or were the walls suddenly closing in on him for real?_ "I—I…"

"Right, of course. You ' _know things'_. How _unique_."

Ōnoki was a pillar, a mountainous presence in the room. Her towered over them all, godlike and unwavering.

His voice sent a chill down Kenta's spine.

 _(He—kenta was so small. So, so fragile.)_

( _Oh god oh god, the killing intent was smothering him alive_. _No no no no no no no please—_ )

Kenta shook with each word, the sound of Ōnoki's voice plucking each shred of composure from him like flower petals. "Do you really think there's anyone better suited to the task than you? As if we'd scoop up any self absorbed, petulant _child_ from the sewers, sit through the _filth_ they expound from their mouth, endure every _insult…_ if there were any other options?"

Kenta broke into a cold sweat. N—-No, I… d-dont… "

 _(Please don't do this.)_

"Your self righteous attitude is a _pain in the ass_." Ōnoki hissed, showing his temper for the first time since he gained the upper hand. "You think you know better than everyone around you? Take a look outside sometime! How many people you think would die if the five tails broke free? Maybe I should just _retire_ and hand my hat off over to you since you seem to know so much better than me about how things _work around here—!_ "

" _Sir_ ," one of his advisors warned as Ōnokis face turned a dangerous shade of red.

The Tsuchikage ignored him, still on the attack, though his anger had turned cold and calculated. "I understand that you find enjoyment in criticizing the way things are run around here. May I remind you that you're a member of the country that _I_ run. You, your _Nana_ , the house you live in—it's the resources of this country that allows you to live the way you do. How do you plan on taking care of your Aunt when you grow older and get cut off from receiving child care benefits? What do you do when her savings dry up trying to take care of everything? What do you do when her health gets worse and you can't pay for it? What do you do when you get sick and she starves? Who do you plan on going to help when you have no other options? I own this land. It's because of this country you have food and water, your _safety_. Shinobi have lived and died for your right to sit there and criticize us for concepts you barely understand, _boy_."

He couldn't say anything. He was trapped. Worse than when he was physically tied up.

"I assume you have a plan, since _of course_ you know what's best for everyone, being a six year old and all. You'll get a job? You'll start saving up? What do you do when a bijuu crushes you both to death—because, I assure you, in little more than a few days, it _will_ happen, _Ken'ichi-san_." The way he said Kenta's birth name physically stung, and he recoiled as if struck. "Tell me, what do _you_ think should happen next?"

Kenta stared down at his hands. His face burnt with indignation. A deep, deep well of resentment burning inside him as he hissed his answer out through his teeth. Saying them out loud felt like surrender. "I didn't have a choice in the matter in the first place."

"You had the opportunity to take this a different way. We don't have the luxury of time on our side, and honestly? I tried being fair about it. But I dont have the patience for egotistical brats anymore—your consent was optional to begin with." The Tsuchikage gestured for his assistants to get the proper paperwork for them to proceed with the following procedures. "The needs of the many _always_ outweigh the needs of the few."

The child's eyes scanned the faces in the room, and found the eyes of each advisor, each man and woman, condemning him with the same, single-minded focus.

He saw them and he knew, in that moment, that when it came down to it, he was a unremarkable spec in their eyes. A nothing human. A small casualty in the face of a much greater battle.

 _The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few. How goddamn twisted._

Some part of him knew they were right. _But, god..._

Deep down, was he really just… not enough?

Not worth a voice.

Not worth remembering.

 _Was that it? Was he really so unimportant, the whole village was willing to live with the sacrifice of an innocent child?_

 _They were really all okay with that?_

His hands shaking, Kenta blinked to clear his eyes, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. _There was no such thing as consent when the Tsuchikage wanted something_. This whole conversation was a goddamn joke. They were humoring him the whole time and he had let himself fall for it. Like a chump. A big stupid idiot.

"I won't forget this."

"Yeah?" Ōnoki said, looking away from his papers and councillors. He seemed… pleased with himself. Happy with Kenta's sudden turn in mood, glad that the boy was suddenly so… defeated and complicit. "Good. Maybe in a couple years you'll grow up and understand that you're not the centre of the universe. Maybe you'll develop some _maturity_ after the five tails is sealed, even _._ You're already at rock bottom, there's nowhere else to go than _up_."

That tiny flame of indignation lit up again, and Kenta's face coloured a bright scarlet. How fucking dare he. How dare he _do this_. How could Ōnoki condemn Kenta and have the balls to be goddamn pleased about it. _The selfish fucking prick_ —

Oh, of course, all he needed to do was _stay positive_. It was just Kenta's personality that was at fault here. _Of course_.

(he really hadn't learned anything from this conversation at all.)

He wanted Ōnoki dead. He wanted to see the senile old fool's head explode like a water balloon. He wanted to wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze and _squeeze and squeeze—_

He wanted—

He wanted…

He... just wanted to go home.

Kenta sniffled, rubbing his runny nose on the sleeve of his hand-me-down sweater. He could see Kitsuchi in the corner, cringing. Good. _Fuck that guy too_. _Damn them all—! He was the victim here!_ "I hope you all _choke on the shit you talk_."

Ōnoki's eye twitched, and he snapped the pencil in his hands, pointing a meaty finger at him. "Next time you get dragged to my office, you'll be bound _and_ gagged, _brat._ "

And then they hauled Kenta out and tossed him into a holding cell.

They should have cut out the middleman and stuffed him in a cell in the first place. _What a goddamn waste of fucking time._

 **.**


	3. Chapter 3 - The Strata Something New

**I hear the Op of this story never updates their stories, that's wack. Somebody should tell them to Update Soon.**

 **AN:** if this chapter doesn't make it clear, perfect grammar and shit isn't a high priority in this fic, I'm really just doing this for fun and to explore tone and voice (and being stupidly meme-ey) so if you're one of those people who like, hate that kind of thing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯sorry. also i hope you enjoy these horrible haikus. I made them especially bad with my lack of poetic talent.

Minor warning for mentioned contemplating suicide. Kenta's not a happy boy, and he kinda makes light of the idea? Mostly because humor is how he deflects, and also because he's An Insensitive Asshole

 **Edited:** **not**

 **Disclaimer: Disclaimed**

 **Fuck count: 45**

 **Wordcount:** **4,560**

 **.**

 **Chapter 3 - The Strata something new**

 **.**

 _Trembling, tenderly_

 _flesh and fleeting, reforming, renewed_

 _Reduced. Repulsive_

—Breathe—

 _copper caught cursing_

 _foretold, forgotten, for Iwa_

 _fucked forever, thanks_

—Just breathe—

 _No peace for stupid_

 _fucking idiots. Enough_

 _with the fucking poems already_

—actually, wait—

 _With a nose so big_

 _it has its own gravity_

 _course' he needs two scales_

—hell yeah—

 _Asshole dictator_

 _Ōnoki can suck my dick,_

 _Go fuck yourself, amen_

 _ **.**_

It felt like some sort of big, cosmic joke.

Maybe it was his fault. Maybe- no, this was totally and completely because of Ōnoki. Maybe also all of Iwa. This was an injustice on the highest level. A violation of his very being, a destruction of his personal autonomy as a human fucking being. It was outrageous. Disgusting. The vilest fucking thing to do—and to a child! Suddenly he understood why so many shinobi turned to the goddamn dark side.

Kenta was going to figure out a way to make them all suffer.

Someone's finger prodded at his bandaged side, and Kenta ground his teeth together to keep himself from snapping at them. Instead, his little fingers clutched his blanket tighter, and he opened one copper eye. "Kitsuchi, you are the bane of my goddamn existence."

"You flatter me," answered the man in a monotone voice, as he made himself comfortable in a nearby chair. He leisurely opened up a manilla folder and scanned a couple lines from a document inside, before taking a bite from—did he _seriously—?_

Did that motherfucker actually bring a muffin into Kenta's hospital room, when he was fully aware that Kenta had been slurping down liquids through a straw through his arm for the past eight days? Did he.

Actually.

Have the _audacity—?_

 _To bringamuffin_ _ **fuckingmotheraAAUGHGHHHHHHHH**_

"Tone it down." Kitsuchi didn't look up as Kenta's chakra rose in agitation, daring to form into a tailed beast-cloak, before a hand coated in chakra brushed over the security seal on Kenta's bed. Immediately, the seal planted over Kenta's heart came to life and clamped down, throwing him back onto his bed, limbs twitching.

Kenta buried his face in his pillow to wait out the agony tearing shit through his chakra coils. He was just so freaking _done_ with it all. Eight freaking days of this, and he was ready to jump off the nearest balcony or Hokage monument or whatever the Iwa equivalent of it. It didn't even need to be a big spectacle, just something clean, simple— _god fucking damnit it_ Kitsuchi was making fucking mouth sounds eating that stupid fucking muffin _just close your mouth you_ _lazy son of a_ _ **bitch.**_

"You know they sell these down in the cafeteria?"

*munch, munch* _I wish you were dead Kitsuchi_ *munch, munch* _if I had the chance to slaughter you with my own two hands, you'd already be worm food_ *munch munch,* _you ugly bastard, you muffinfuc—_ *munch munch.* — _motherfucker, DAMN IT._

"They were giving out little cups of butter with them too, they pair really well together when the muffins come right out of the oven. It must be my lucky day or something."

 _*_ munch, munch _* slow and painful, somewhere where nobody would see,_ *munch munch.*

 _nobody would find out, nobody would know until it was too late,*_ munch, munch _* JUST KILL ME ALRE_ _ **ADYYY.**_

"Wow, two in one sitting, you must be feeling better." The bastard tossed the wrapper into a nearby garbage can as Kenta's seal lit up again and he was thrown back in bed. "Tell me, do you enjoy getting shut down or is this all going according to keikaku for you." He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair. "According to plan, I mean. Keikaku means—"

"Shut up, I know what it means—" Kenta palmed his forehead, sucking in a shaky breath through his clenched teeth. "Dumbass muffin loving fuck."

"Mmmmm I think you used that one already." Kitsuchi leaned back in his chair, file in hand. "Use the same word over again they start to lose their meaning."

"I'll call you a fuck however many times I want, it's the perfect word, there's no way it could lose its meaning." Kitsuchi raised an eyebrow at him, and Kenta shot him a deadpan stare. "Fuck."

"What did I _just_ say?"

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck you! FUCK—!"

Kitsuchi sighed, setting down his papers. "That's so unoriginal."

Kenta sneered at him, half tempted to rip the IV out of his arm and leap at the jōnin, and half wanting to go on a tailed beast rampage, damn the consequences. "You're a—a—"

"Come on, hit me with something I haven't heard before." The look on Kitsuchi was one of complete resignment. He was completely dead inside. Nothing Kenta could come up with would reignite the spark in his empty fucking fish eyes. "I'll be waiting."

"Why should I try to please you, _old man?_ " Kenta turned his back on him like the goddamn coward he was, ignoring the entertained snort behind him.

 _Whatever_. Kenta was like, so above that kind of petty bullshit. N-not that he couldn't come up with an insult that could really shake Kitsuchi to his core, or like, he actually cared. Kitsuchi had visited just because he liked to torture him, just like the other eight days he showed up. Obviously. _Idiot._

"What are you even reading, anyway?" The spot above Kenta's heart ached, and he rubbed his sore collarbones, still stinging from the seal placed over the chakra gate there. "Boring office grunt stuff that nobody wants to do, right? Knew it. You should listen to some of the poems I came up with while you were away, there was a good one about Ōnoki needing two scales because his nose is so freaking big."

Kitsuchi looked like that was the last thing he wanted to hear about, so he completely ignored that part of the conversation. "Actually, I'm looking at files for your future teammate. So yes, grunt stuff. Compared to other jobs I work, yeah, pretty—HEY!" he snatched the folder back out of Kenta's hands. " _Normal people_ ask permission first."

"I've just become the world's most unwanted horse owner, don't fucking talk to me about _normal_." Kenta made a half-hearted attempt to swipe the papers again, only for his IV to pull on his arm uncomfortable. He glared at the tube, and gave a few testing tugs, the skin around his arm pulling awkwardly. "I'm so fucking sick and tired of this stupid hospital. I should just pull this out and be done with it."

"Is that a fancy way of saying you'd rather bleed out than find out what kind of brat I plan on sticking you with for all of eternity?" Kitsuchi said in a monotone voice, before tossing the folder at Kenta's head. Better distract him than letting the kid tear out his arteries. He took a small amount of satisfaction in watching the boy splutter curses in confusion before Kenta realized what Kitsuchi just handed him.

Kenta started frantically searching through the pile of papers, eyes scanning the face of each academy student and child with the barest hints of potential. "Ok be cool for just one second and let me choose my partner, or else I'll make your life a living hell."

"With such an incredible offer like that _,_ how could I refuse." He sighed, getting out of his chair with the intent to grab another one of those sweet muffins from the cafeteria before they were all gone.

When he returned, Kenta was waiting for him, the folder neatly put back together and a single, slightly crinkled paper clasped between the kid's sweaty fingers. The manic grin on the boy's face made Kitsuchi nervous. He almost looked possessed—his wide copper eyes unblinking as he tracked the jōnin's movements.

"This one. I want this one."

Did it matter what the kid chose in the end? Probably not. But the way the boy's chakra surged in delight as Kitsuchi took the slip of paper from his hands and looked over the profile was such a change in character from the broken, angry child from before...

Sure, it was ultimately up to Kitsuchi, and then Ōnoki on what sort of partner the kid would end up with, but for once…

Maybe Kitsuchi would cut him a break. Ōnoki really had been pretty damn harsh on him. Taking away the illusion of choice, and sticking him with a situation he never asked for… It was a necessary cruelty, sure, and Kenta had been nothing but antagonistic since they first contacted him… but for the first time since the sealing, Kenta seemed actually _alive._

Maybe a little kindness was in order. Kitsuchi had to remind himself that he was dealing with an actual child, still. He was hurting, even if he tried to hide it under obscenities and dark humor.

Sure, what the hell. He'd let him pick his partner.

How bad could it possibly be?

 **.**

Revenge.

Was.

So.

Sweet.

The academy was already in session, and the two of them watched from the sidelines as the youngest kids made their way out to the playground for their lunch break. Kenta had already spotted their target, and he was sure Kitsuchi had as well, but the older man was more preoccupied in watching Kenta due to his sheer fucking glee over the past several days leading up to this first meeting. It was goddamn Christmas for him, and Kitsuchi was none the wiser.

Sure, yeah, okay. Maybe he was wise to it. But he didn't know _why._

And that made it _all the sweeter_.

"Papa!"

...that being said, it wasn't like his plan was without speed bumps.

" _Excuse me?_ " Kenta turned to watch as some dark-haired brat vaulted over the fence separating them from the rest of the crib lizards, breaking quarantine and probably putting the entire village at stake.

Then again, Iwa could burn for all Kenta cared, so Kitsuchi's spawn was probably doing him a favor.

"Ahh, not now 'tsuchi-chan, daddy's working…" Kitsuchi caught his fetal parasite mid-air and gently brought her back to the ground, patting her head affectionately with a— actually wait was nobody going to fucking comment on the fact that Kitsuchi just called himself 'daddy?' _eUGH!_

Kurotsuchi was a fucking gremlin as a kid. Absolutely the spawn of satan—which made complete sense since Ōnoki was her freaking grandfather. She didn't have that stupid tomboy bob from the anime yet, since apparently she was daddy's _precious-little-darling_ , and wore stupid pink barrettes in her hair with sparkles, and

Okay, really what pissed Kenta off was that she was already taller than him. Fine, there. He said it. The sproglodyte was taller than him, and they both knew it. Let him stew in his hatred of her already, _god_.

"Oh, so you're _him_." Kurotsuchi was quick to push her advantage, looking down at Kenta from the bride of her nose. "I thought you'd be bigger."

One of the lenses popped out of Kenta's glasses by how hard he was glaring at her.

Kitsuchi—or, K-man Senior, since their names were both so stupidly long and similar, what the fuck—caught the little piece of glass before it hit the ground, thankfully. "We're here on official business, sweetie. Sorry, but you know the rules."

K-spawn Jr. didn't seem to take to the news well and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting. "You're always on official business. I never get to play ninja with you anymore."

"Oh, _play_ ninja? That's adorable. You're adorable." Kenta looked up at Kitsuchi with an unbelievable expression on his face. "Isn't it cute when they like to pretend this shit isn't serious?"

"Watch your language around my daughter," Kitsuchi said, deeply frowning at him. He gestured for Kurotsuchi to return back to the playground as he led Kenta towards the academy building (though his daughter still followed closely behind, as well as her new curious group of friends). "And I find that pretty rich coming from you of all people. It's barely been two weeks since—"

"—shut up, I know." Kenta took off his little blue glasses and tucked them in his pocket, along with the lense Kitsuchi passed him a second later. It didn't seem like his absolute rudeness was bathing the guy anymore, and kenta silently cursed to himself, because if he was going to be stuck with the guy for the foreseeable future, he wanted to _at least_ be able to get under his skin. Otherwise, what the damn point?

He considered, maybe, taunting the guy's daughter would piss the jōnin off, but despite actively cursing out the Tsuchikage to the point where Ōnoki probably wanted to kill him, Kenta didn't have a death wish. He was just really fucking antagonistic when cornered. It wasn't like Ōnoki gave him any other option—and honestly, the bastard deserved it. The old man might've been looking out for """""" _the greater good"_ """" or whatever (bullshit), but there was absolutely going to come a day when Kenta would pay him back for that seal planted on his chest.

And _oh,_ it was going to a reckoning. A Goddamn religious experience—poetry in motion, better than anything Kenta could come up with when putting pen to paper. He just needed time to come up with the best way to go about it. The guy had signed Kenta's freaking death warrant. Whatever Kenta came up with, it _had_ to be good. Life changing. Life _ending_ , probably on his case, what with the whole ' _pein madara kaguya future oh god whyyyy nooooo ahhhhh pain and death and angsty suffering'_ that everyone other than a shounen protagonist had to deal with. You know.

...but it was easier just to say ' _Ōnoki fucking signed my death warrant_ ' and stew over that instead, while also not being a giant big bubble blowing baby about it. Because Kenta wasn't. A baby, he meant. Totally. All those times in the past two weeks where he cried because ' _ahhhhhhh the painnnnnnn why did this have to happennnn?'_ he was totally just. Getting that out of his system. Because he wasn't a pussy, and because he totally had a hand on like, everything that was happening around him. He totally hadn't suffered the worst beatdown of his entire life, and he was totally done licking his wounds because that's what Strong Anime Protagonists Did and he was going to be Just Like them, _believe it_.

Yeah. Sounds convincing.

(god, why did he have to mock himself and his own suffering in his own head? What the fuck was wrong with him…)

...anyway.

Kitsuchi was _also_ going to pay for the seal he planted on Kenta's back, which had its little claws dug clamped down tight on his chakra flow in case he tried starting shit. It was itchy and annoying, and Kenta hated it. Kitsuchi was going to get what was coming to him.

...Not as much as Ōnoki though— _ugh,_ he should really come up with some kind of demeaning nickname, the bastard really didn't deserve anything less—but still like, some suffering. Even if Kitsuchi was just doing his job. Being put on lockdown was annoying, even it was for the """ _safety of everyone else_ """ or whatever. Boiling _carpet munchers_ alive with a chakra cloak wasn't that high up on Kenta's To-do list, even if their freakish little hamster eyes _did_ creep him out.

They made their way inside the academy. Kenta had lost sight of their mark a little while ago, lost in his own thoughts and revenge-plotting (take some fucking notes, Sasuke Uchiha), but eventually, Kitsuchi started chatting up some unimportant teacher, and she told him some unimportant information. Kenta watched them go on, wondering to himself how in the world he was supposed to feel anything but contempt for the civilians of Iwa, now that his life had been taken from him and sacrificed so that little Hanako-whatever-the-fuck and Orochimaru Jr. could live their happy little lives, making macaroni cutouts of their favorites my little pony characters.

Actually, just the fucking image of a tiny Orochimaru looking up at him with a wide, dimpled snake smile, handing Kenta a poorly drawn picture of the Gobi, like he was totally freaking proud of his work was enough to shake him from his bitterness and

Absolutely make him nauseous what the fuck was wrong with him.

Jesus. This was why he never left his Nana's house.

But someone _*cough*_ Ōnoki (he really needed to come up with a nickname for him) _*cough*_ decided Kenta wasn't about that kind of life anymore.

Nooooo, he had to be a _Jinchūriki_ , because dying young and being feared was absolutely something Kenta wanted. Kenta had to have a giant horse dolphin abomination shoved inside him because he was so about stupid power fantasies and totally loved the idea of losing his senses every time someone brought a _fucking muffin_ into his hospital room.

 _Ugh_. He really just wanted to go home and write shitty poetry in the dark.

K-spawn Jr. and her little gaggle of carpet sharks were swarming outside the windows like someone had salted the earth and kept their diseased, hellish vessels from entering. Kenta idly wondered if there something about the classrooms that made them hallowed ground during recess, resisting the urge to copy the rude gestures they were making at him outside. For whatever reason, Kenta was grateful, if it meant he didn't have to fucking look at any more munchkins while they were on official business.

Well. Except for one.

So. Step one of his absolutely cathartic revenge on Ōnoki and Kitsuchi aside, getting a teammate and doing the whole ninja academy bullshit was kind of different in Iwa, and it was a lot different for Kenta. It probably had something to do with the fact that he was still healing from the sealing (ha, that rhymed, he should be a poet— _oh wait_ ). The school year had already started, and he was years older than any of the rugrats who were just freshly enrolled, so obviously, they would have to tutor him instead. That wasn't much of a problem, other than the fact that Kenta absolutely loathed the idea and didn't want any more of Iwa's doctrine shoved down his throat, but whatever, he would burn that bridge when he came to it.

His teammate though, that was something special. Iwa's shinobi system was different than Konoha's—they worked with a particularly strange mix and match sort of squadron style. Konoha worked with four-man squads, one jōnin, and three genin, or like, some chūnin and a jōnin, special jōnin, whatever. Iwa though, squadrons were groups of five, designed to be balanced to meet whatever expectations their missions required. That was done by pairing up fresh genin into groups of twos and having them train together, with a chūnin or something to overlook their progress; a higher ranking official who didn't need to lean on the support of their partner to fight on their own.

The five-man mix and match system worked for a variety of reasons, mostly because each squadron was highly customizable for whatever thrown at them, and it was an easy way to teach fresh recruits the ropes while taking on more difficult missions. When it was a unit of genin, chūnin, and a jōnin as their leader, they had a pretty mixed range of skill levels, which meant the jōnin weren't bogged down carrying useless dead weight if the team was threatened by something beyond what the genin could handle.

 _*cough*_ wave arc _*cough*_ fuck the hidden leaf _*cough*_

The chūnin would fill in, and the jōnin would act as a distraction while the weaker members fell back or picked off weaker enemies or lay traps or something within their skillset. The only thing that Iwa did similarly to Konoha was pair the genin up based on their grade level—higher rated graduates would be paired with more lacking ones, and vice versa.

They did the same sort of buddy system in Kumo, though they didn't seem too keen on the five-man squad idea. Kumo was obsessed with individual strength and standing on one's own feet—higher skilled shinobi tutoring younger ones with potential and developing familial bonds since it was pretty damn obvious that Kumo relied on kidnapping and raising kids with bloodline limits as soldiers. They had to have some reason to keep the kids sticking around, after all.

Kiri, from what Kenta could tell, was a mess. Their graduation duel was over the top and meant their pool of fresh recruits were always smaller than they had to be, and there were hardly any higher ranked shinobi willing to teach. The seven swordsmen though, took on individual students to pass down their techniques, though more often than not their apprentices ended up dying because in order to obtain the sword from a living swordsman, a student traditionally had _to cut off their master's head_. Hence, the reason why all of them wore bandages around their necks.

It was goddamn barbaric. But he had to admit, there was something disgustingly poetic about it. Something about cutting off the head that once gave knowledge to its student, finally running out of things to teach. Or… uh... something about Kiri's system having to brutalize their way past the older generation of shinobi, scarred by tradition and what they had to go through in order to find a footing in the world. Or, um… something about old people ruining everything for everyone?

...Okay, so both of those were pretty vague generalizations and there was probably nothing pretty about decapitation. Kenta had never been under the illusion that he was actually _good_ at poetry. _Whatever._

He didn't know much about Suna, to be honest. Kenta hadn't actually studied in the academy, so he wasn't 100% on how the elemental nations worked, other than what heard by word of mouth from his nana. There was a chance Suna operated in a four-man system similar to Konoha, but the only team he really knew about was the sound siblings, and they seemed like a special case. For all he knew, they could have just been paired up for the sake of the chūnin exams, since it was held in Konoha, and the leaf were obnoxious jerks about doing things their way all the time.

Whatever. It wasn't like Kenta wanted anything to do with them anyway.

"Whatever it is, it wasn't my fault, yeah!"

The teacher Kitsuchi had been talking to had brought them into one of the many classrooms, where a tiny, blonde haired punk stood, waiting for them.

"You're not in trouble, Deidara-san." The teacher paused, noting how close the kid was to her desk, where several drawers had been pulled out and rifled through. Kenta could physically feel the teacher tense up, her voice hilariously clipped "Actually, the two gentlemen behind me are here on behalf of the Tsuchikage."

"Oh." There was a pause, where the blonde looked over the two of them with over with cautious eyes. "Well, they can fuck off."

"Deidara!" the teacher gasped. She quickly turned around, absolutely mortified. "I am so, so sorry—this kind of disrespect is completely inappropriate, I don't even know where Deidara heard that word, please give my utmost respects to the Tsuchikage and—"

"THE GREAT FACE-SITTER," Kenta exclaimed, drawing all attention in the room. The poor teacher looked absolutely shocked, but Kitsuchi didn't even look like he wanted an explanation. Kenta gave it anyway. "I just thought of a nickname for Ōnoki, finally. You know, because they call him the fence sitter, and—"

"I get it," Kitsuchi sighed, completely expecting this kind of thing from Kenta already.

"No I mean like, it took me a long time, right? And i was thinking of calling him Sönoki, which kind of sounds like sonic the hedgehog and this person called Snooki from a trashy tv show had some sort of disgusting lovechild together, but that wasn't good enough, so like—"

"No, really, keep going. I want to hear more about this crisis of yours."

"Then stop interrupting me?" Kenta huffed, turning to the teacher and tiny Deidara, who was watching him like Kenta had sprouted a second head and somehow seemed kinda into that. But he was too caught up in the narrative to really take notice. "Not that its physically possible for a human to have sex with a hedgehog, but then again in the Sonic The Hedgehog game in 2006 There was a character named Princess Elise who was written in as a love interest for him, which was fucking weird but that raises the case of the fact that sonic is proportionally about the same size as a very small man, so I guess it's possible? And then there's also the fact that Snooki from Jersey shore is about four foot eight so they'd actually be the perfect height to spawn such a tiny prick like our Tsuchikage so it'd actually make a lot of sense—"

"He's going through a lot," Kitsuchi said to the speechless, innocent teacher and student.

"—and I guess it's a bit of a missed opportunity but like, the great face-sitter, right? That's freaking _brilliant_. I amaze myself sometimes. Also nobody would get my reference; not that I care about what any of your normies think, you all buy into Sönoki's oppressive doctrine so what the fucks the point, we're all going to die anyway so it's just a waste of breath calling him by his actual title or even giving anyone respect at this point, I'm six years old and my life is already over, who fucking cares."

Kitsuchi looked like he had been watching the clock, waiting for when Kenta would officially run out of things to say. He looked profoundly dead inside. "A waste of breath, you said?"

The brat ignored him, and the completely expected spluttering from the normal teacher person, turning his attention towards the one person Kenta actually wanted to talk to. His ace in the hole. The first step in his plan to fucking stick it to the face-sitter. The guy whose opinion he cared more about than stupid Kitsuchi and his stupid daughter watching them out the window, and the stupid teacher he didn't even know the name of.

Kenta took a deep breath.

"What do you think of _horses_?"

Deidara—future S rank missing nin, and probably the guy who was going to be Kenata's undoing in the future, not that he really cared because _Ōnoki already fucking signed his death warrant_ —gave him an empty stare.

"They're kinda freaky looking, yeah?"

Kenta liked him immediately.

.


	4. Chapter 4 - Chalk Is Cheap

**AN:** Iwa made him their container, but he wouldn't listen to their dictator—Deidara at his side, Kenta thought he could hide, but really he's stuck there forever.

(how many times will I think up better intros to this story? ugh)

In which Kenta is a bothersome boy, Deidara is his better (smarter) half already, and sometimes, people just dont appreciate colourful insults and constant disrespect

 **Fuck Count:** 41

 **Word count:** 5, 666 (nice)

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 **Chapter 4 -** **Chalk is cheap**

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Revenge is all good, plotting is fun

But who will you tell when you're all done.

Like having a partner who knows what you mean

When you slam the establishment and rage against the machine.

Deidara's awesome, his hair is real nice

We did some fun sparring and he let me win twice

My new partner's cool, though his hands are real sweaty

When he gets his upgrades, I'll throw some confetti.

 _Written by, like, a really clever poet_

[written in the margins below, in someone else's handwriting is a messily scrawled ' _My hands are a normal amount of sweaty? Stop grabbing them then?_ ']

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"According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a _killer bee_ should be able to—SHIT!"

Deidara's hand shot out and caught the forehead protector tied around Kenta's neck before the other boy fell to the ground. He adjusted his grip and grabbed his arm to steady him. "That's pretty unfortunate. Is that like, a Kumo thing? Gross."

Kenta righted himself, shooting the blonde a disgruntled look. "You cut me off before I could continue."

Deidara shuffled back a couple steps, sizing Kenta up. " _Did I, yeah_?"

" _Yeah._ " Deidara ducked a sloppy punch, a quick flash of a smile on his face before his leg swung out again to clip Kenta's knee. Instead of falling back like before, he dodged, and shot his partner another scowl. "You just don't want to hear the rest of it. I know—you don't have to say it out loud."

"Oh, _well_ —" Deidara lunged right, locking Kenta's arm behind his back and driving him to the ground. His knee dug into Kenta's back, and he held back a cackle as Kenta fruitlessly thrashed his legs behind him in the dirt. "I didn't know you could read my mind. What else am I thinking, hm?"

" _Fuck you_ ," Kenta spluttered into the dirt. "That's an illegal hold! I'm being _manhandled!_ "

He pulled Kenta's other arm behind him and securing both wrists with wire, Deidara gently sat down on Kenta's back as the other boys' legs kicked up dust. The blonde coughed, looking down at his partner and wrinkling his nose. "Yeaaahhh…. not even close, you _nasty_."

"Boys, please stop _talking_ when you're supposed to be _blocking_." Kitsuchi grumbled, bothered they were getting along so well but not bothered enough to get off his ass and set them straight. A terrible decision, really.

"Which one of us here is supposed to be good at rhymes, hmm?" Deidara smirked as Kenta kicked up another cloud of dirt. "Kitsuchi-sensei, I didn't know you had it in you."

"Don't be impressed by him! Kitsuchi has absolutely nothing going on between those ears of his, a real poet takes hours to come up with a single good-sounding line!." Kenta struggled to pull apart the wire binding his wrists, but all he did was make things worse. He floundered, helpless. It was goddamn degrading.

Kitsuchi turned a page in his book. "I mean, maybe for you."

"Haha, I get it, I'm a shitty writer. Someone _set me free!_ "

Deidara, still sitting on him and doing absolutely nothing to make this easier for Kenta's pride, didn't move an inch. "Well, since you asked so nicely, yeah, sure. You can get up now."

Kenta huffed, a small cloud of dust billowing up in front of his face and clouding his glasses. " _Hilarious._ Where do you get off? Because it certainly isn't off of me, you _ass._ "

"I thought it was a pretty good joke," muttered Kitsuchi, looking back down at his novel while his student was being brutalized on the ground. "Whatever, pack it up, we have a mission to do and only a couple hours to clean up the mess you both made during the last one." He glared above the pages of his book. " _Deidara_."

The blonde quickly leapt to his feet. "It's not my fault! How was I supposed to know that random sacks of flour were _explosive, hmm?_ "

Kenta watched him, his wrists bound behind him. "I can't actually untie myself—"

"That's _exactly_ something you would know." Kitsuchi fired back at the blond, ignoring his other student.

"Like, maybe a little help—"

Deidara kept to the defensive. "Okay, maybe, _yeah_. But it's not like _I_ left them out there to begin with."

Kenta huffed. "It's not like _I_ couldn't get out of this on my own to begin with, but we all have our vices. Someone—"

"They were sitting in front of a bakery, kid. Cut the crap?" Said Kitsuchi incredulously. The explosion _had_ been quite memorable.

Deidara was hardly apologetic. "Life is fleeting, they should have appreciated the flour when they had it!"

"You threw paper bombs at them!"

"Just leave me here to die, really, I don't mind." Kenta buried his face in the filth on the ground, resigned to his misery. "Of all the ways to—eUGH!" He yelped as Deidara hoisted him up by the arm, cutting through the wire with a kunai from his pouch.

"Better, hmm?"

Kenta's glasses slipped down his nose, but all he could do was glare. His partner was such a cheeky prick. "...thanks."

"Right, then." Kitsuchi closed his stupid little romance book and faced them both. It looked like he had been reading some sort of tropical romance with the most bland, soul sucking vanilla cover Kenta had ever seen. Of course his sensei was basic as fuck, it just made sense. "Are we ready to get going?"

Kenta adjusted his glasses and started dusting himself off. "Sure, yeah, if the village needs another dumbass cat rescued from a tree, or a little old lady to walk across the street. Honestly, what better use of my time? I love helping the jackholes who benefit from human sacrifice."

"You'll love it even more when you get to work as the village's mail boy tooday," Kitsuchi said dryly, handing him a mission scroll.

"I love helping jackholes who benefit from my sacrifice even more when they're pushy jerks about it." Kenta passed the scroll to Deidara without even looking at it, staring unblinkingly up at his sensei. "You're fucking welcome by the way."

Kitsuchi sighed deeply, looking like he just wanted this conversation to be over. Finally, he asked, "for what?"

"Being the sacrifice that saved your ugly hide."

"Thanks for the hourly reminder."

Deidara rolled the scroll back up, grumbling to himself. He tossed it back at their sensei, shoving his (sweaty) artist hands into his pockets. "You had to pick a team co-op mission for this? You couldn't have just let us do our own thing? What a _bummer_."

Kenta winced. "Who are we saddled with?"

"Some borning nobody named Akatsuchi—" Kenta relaxed. "—and some chick named Kurotsuchi."

"NO!" Kenta threw a punch at his sensei, which was easily blocked. "You're a nightmare! You're trying to make my life more difficult aren't you?! Go have your daddy time somewhere else you old hag!"

"Ohhh, is Kenty afraid of a widdle girl, hmm?" Deidara mocked, also blocking a punch sent his way. The blonde snickered. "That's _hilarious_."

" _Your face_ is hilarious!" Kenta tossed a fistfull of dirt at him, and soon enough they were at it again, kicking and scratching at each other for no reason this time, and Kitsuchi was as useless as fuck ever.

For the second time in minutes, Kenta was pinned to the ground with an overly smug, dirty heathen sitting on top of him. But at least this time his pretty hair and face was messed up, so like. It was a _Win?_

"Keep trying, yeah? Maybe someday you'll be able to fight your way out of a wet paper bag." Deidara looked like a ruffled, pissy cat, as he gently wiped the dirt from his face with the sleeve of his robe. "Sensei do you have a rag?"

"Not for you," Kitsuchi sighed, hands on his hips. "I'm still down a handkerchief after the molotov cocktail incident. You two are a menace."

"So you— _get the hell off me_ —thought you'd throw in your daughter to spice some things up?" Kenta wheezed, kicking his legs back and managing to clip Deidara with enough force to make the blonde move. "What if I go nuclear?"

"You can't, and you won't," Kitsuchi said, rubbing his temples. "I know what I'm doing."

Deidara, still trying to get the grime out of his stupid fancy hair, asked, "What does nuclear mean?"

"The biggest explosion you could ever dream of."

" _Big_ , yeah?"

"Enough to vaporize entire mountains and landscapes."

Deidara's pupils dilated, he clasped his grubby little hands together. "Ohh, my god, I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Kitsuchi groaned. "Save your pillowtalk for another time, please. We have a mission, remember?"

"Are we good?" Kenta asked, ignoring the whiny pissbaby voice of his teacher. There were other things on his mind. "Because we need to square the fuck up when K spawn Jr. rolls in. She has an accomplice now, I don't know what she's capable of, and we definitely need to stick together—"

"Deidara-kun is that you?" The cheerful laughter of the devil sounded out behind Kenta, and he knew the it was too late. "It's been so long!"

"You know her, why didn't you say that _you know her_?" Kenta hissed, holding onto Deidara's sleeve in a death-grip as the other boy happily greeted the parasite. She was taller than them both, as well as her teammate lagging behind. Robotically, Kenta turned to Kitsuchi's spawn. "I thought your family had done Enough."

"You'd be wrong," she smiled, her new shiny forehead protector wrapped around her neck. Her smile widened, looking at the placement of his. "Hey, look at that, we match."

"Twinzies," Deidara, the fucking traitor, said under his breath, somehow finding the humor in their ambush. He did seem more and more uncomfortable standing in between the two of them though, like they were about to start swinging any moment.

 _Good,_ sweat a little more, piggy _. Squirm_.

Kenta dropped Deidara's arm, his hand reaching to his pocket. "One of us is going to have to go."

"You mean change?"

Kenta pulled out a kunai. "No, _go_."

"There's going to be no attempts on my daughter's life while I'm here," hissed Kitsuchi, plucking the harmless little weapon out of Kenta's hands with more force than necessary. Like a bitch. He rounded on Kenta, who could already see a lecture coming on. His daughter was literally the only thing that could get his sensei riled up, it was so predictable. "If you think that sort of behavior will be tolerated—"

"Daddy, I don't think he meant any harm," the homunculus interrupted, sweetly smiling up to her creator. Her liquid compound eyes shifted over to the sacrifice in front of her, and stretched the skin around on her face in a mockery attempt at what humans could have called a smile, a smirk, (if they were blind). "Besides, I don't even think four-eyes can even _throw_ straight…. if he even knows what that word means."

"I'll show you _straight_ ," Kenta hissed, reaching for his hollister again, before his sensei yanked his arm back.

 _Nuclear,_ he thought. Kenta had been fucking robbed.

It must've shown on his face, because then Deidara quietly whispered " _ka-boom_ ," with hand-reenactments and everything. God, those upgrades really couldn't come soon enough.

Kenta couldn't even look at the dumpster fire in front of him anymore, instead, looking back at the antichrist's poor victim that had tagged along with. Their sensei had moved on from being a boring, quiet stalker and started chatting up Kitsuchi, who kept sending Kenta warning glances not to off his genetic mark on the world.

 _Whatever,_ buzzkill.

The other kid, Akatsuchi was… nothing, there was nothing special about this guy at all. Totally boring in every way, he had absolutely nothing going for him in life other than his baby-fat figure, and his pug-like face that just reminded Kenta so much of Ōnoki he wanted to puke.

So naturally, he insulted him.

"So are you the face-sitter's unwanted bastard or just his ugly failed clone?"

And the kid _burst into tears_.

The nerve?

"What the hell did you _say?_ " Kurotsuchi was spitting flames at him as she tried to console the giant baby next to her, patting his back and giving him a one-armed hug. "It's okay, it's okay don't listen to that mean jerk, he didn't mean it."

"H—He didnt?" The irrelevant kid blubbered, looking up hopefully between his ugly snotty tears. Figures, a nose like that could pack a wallop.

"I mean it was a question, I wanted to know which one was the truth."

Deidara let out a startled laugh, like he had been trying hard to hold it in and couldn't. Akatsuchi started crying harder.

"You two are the worst!" Kitsuchi hissed, baring her teeth at them. Finally, she was showing her true devil colours instead of wearing the face of a little girl. The Truth would set them all free, and it would be forged through fire and the defeat of his enemy. "Apologize, both of you!"

"W-why are you lumping m-me in with him?" Deidara choked, struggling to rein in his composure. "I d-didn't say anything."

Kenta stuffed his hands into his pockets, indignant and undisturbed by the sobbing punk in front of him. "He's supposed to be a ninja, right? you're not in preschool anymore, people say _words_ sometimes. Get over yourselves."

"You are such an insufferable _prick_." Kurotsuchi dropped her arm slung across the baby's massive shoulders, which was impressive because whats-his-name was supposed to be like, A Child. To be honest it just counted towards Kenta's theory that Ōnoki was trying to grow himself a bigger body so he could reach the big-boy shelves. "You're lucky my dad is here, I'd have broken your nose already, you _smarmy little punk_."

Deidara glanced up at their sensei, who shrugged. "I mean if that's all thats stopping you…"

"II'm ssworry fffor bewing ss so mmean," Kenta sniffled, jutting out his bottom lip. "Yyowu ddon't nweed t-to saywe such mean wwordws…. owo, I mwight c-cry twoo... ."

Kurotsuchi's fist slammed into Kenta's face without a second of hesitation.

"Wh—ftuftaf _heck_?" Kenta stumbled backwards, blood splattering to the ground and coating the front of his shirt. Thankfully Deidara caught him, but as he brought his hand up to his crooked swelling nose, his eyes started watering as the pain set in and— _she just fucking punched him!?_

"Oh no, looks like _you're_ the one crying now," Kurotsuchi said flatly, shaking out her hand. "Funny how that happened."

"I-I was—? _I didn't_ —! You _fuCK_ — _?!_ "

By her side, Akatsuchi gasped, wide eyed at how much of a deadass bitch she revealed herself to be. Obviously now he was thinking of running far, far away and not idolizing her at all.

"Y-you did that… f-for me?" the irrelevant kid said, drying his eyes as his partner nodded at him. "You're k-kind of amazing..."

"Yeah laugh it up ugly, it won't make _your face any less of a mess!_ " Kenta's voice came out pitched and choked. The lense on his glasses slid down the side of his face, beating his fucking nosebleed and the water (NOT TEARS, FUCK YOU) gathering in his traitorous fucking baby eyes.

Deidara had seen enough to want to retreat. He looked anxiously between the two, tugging Kenta back before he earned another punch to the face. "Ok I'm picking your battles for you now, and I think it's time to ease back on the insults, yeah?"

Kenta sneered at him. "Where's your _loyalty?_ You should help me kick _her ass, you traitor_."

"Where's the beauty in that?" Deidara put his hands on his hips, unperturbed by the blood fucking gushing from Kenta's face. "Sorry for _caring_. I should just let you tear eachother apart, I'm sure it'd go off with a _bang_."

"I should be allowed to go nuclear! It's my right to be able to blow a bitch out of the water, this is so unfair—" Kenta grasped at the seal planted over his heart, locking down his chakra flow and keeping him from his _destiny_. He threw his shirt off, scratching at the ink on his chest. "If I could use chakra you muppets would be toast, I'd wear you out like like the cheap sock puppets you are, I'd take my foot and _shove it so far I'd have a pair of leg warmers. The winters would be cold but I'd be right fucking warm all night long_ —"

"Are you ready to start the mission?" Kitsuchi asked, jumping in at the last fucking moment. "Time to go."

Shirtless, bleeding from his broken nose, Kenta squinted at him through his broken glasses. A mess of his own making.

"What."

(He had also maybe gotten a little lost in the narrative he had been building. He hadn't even gotten to the part about making a matching pair of gloves yet?)

"Ready to go, daddy~!" Kurotsuchi skipped past him with a cheeky fucking smile on her face, pulling along her partner by the hand, like they were best fucking friends in the world now.

Deidara picked up Kenta's shirt, hurling it at his hand, which he missed, (because fucking depth perception sucks when your glasses are broken by Girls Who Punch Good). The shirt hit in smack in the face.

"Yikes." Deidara winced. "Come on, let's just get this over with."

"Easy for you to say, traitor."

The blonde frowned. "Hmm. Would it make you feel any better if I said I only knew her because she bullied me in the academy?"

Kenta pulled his shirt back on. "I dunno, did you deserve it?"

"Absolutely," Deidara grinned. "You have a better chance with me at your side getting your revenge on her than you do with any of her other enemies."

"And from there, I can work my way up to the top." Kenta rubbed his hands together. "Okay, maybe you're forgiven. For now. Next time try to save my face if you see any punches thrown my way though, its all I have."

"All?" Deidara asked, dubious. "That's unfortunate."

"Shut up, pretty boy."

Deidara tossed a lock of blonde hair over his shoulder, batting his eyes. "You think I'm pretty?"

"Like a picture. I know you spend an two hours every day getting ready, go fish for compliments in someone's else's pond."

"Looking good is An Art," Deidara sniffed. "You'd know if you ever washed your face, you caveman."

"People wash their face?"

"Wh—yes?"

"And that shit _works?_ "

"Are you being serious right now?"

"I mean—wait, are _you_?"

"I can't deal with this." Deidara held up his hand and closed his eyes, looking pained. "Let's just get this mission over with so I can afford food tomorrow."

"You'd be able to eat well if you stopped spending all your cash on paints and makeup, bitch." Kenta spat a wad of red onto the ground and gave his best sneer at the kids leaving him behind, but his heart wasn't in it. All the steam had left him after that muppet thing. He was still kinda thinking about it actually.

 _God._ he thought, watching them go. Kids. All fully fledged shinobi. _What a waste_ —

Kurotsuchi shot him a little wave as she left him behind, her knuckles pink and speckled with crimson. All sympathy flew out the door and he was back, hating her fucking guts again.

Filthy little ingrates.

This family would the the death of him.

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Roshi paced outside the home of the new Jinchūriki's residence, mulling over the words he had practiced in his head.

How would it go, reaching out to the new human container, now that the child's life was so drastically altered? How could he speak with the boy, impart on him the wisdom forty years of this life that Roshi had experienced? He wanted to help, he wanted to reach out and extend the hand he had once wished was there for himself.

Maybe, perhaps the two could be allowed to train together, Ōnoki would allow them that much, yes? There was hope, if only—if only Roshi knew how…

Finally, the boy came within distance. "Ah, Ken'ichi Ishikawa, it's good to catch you—"

"No, not fucking happening." Kenta stepped right under Roshi's outstretched hand and unlocked his door. "I'd too tired for whatever shit you're planning, thank you, good day."

"Wait, what—?" The wisdom, the information he could give; Roshi wanted to introduce the boy to his tailed beast, cultivate a relationship. _He had mediated on this subject for days_ — "Um."

"Bye." Kenta slammed the door behind him, dumping his bag by the door and peeling off his sandals.

After a second thought, he turned around—

A muffled, confused, "Ishikawa-san?" sounded out behind the door.

Kenta locked it behind him for good measure.

He wasn't doing this again. _Never._

Setting his sandals by the rest of the shoes, he blindly reached out for his slippers. He had a new pair of glasses in his pocket after buying a new pair in the market today—the brightest obnoxious colour blue he could find, because that was just how he wanted it. To be honest, he probably had some long standing debt running with the glasses guy who kept having to replace them, but since the face-sitter sealed a fucking horse inside him, Kenta figured he's pass the bill onto the old man. It was only fair.

Inside was a mess, but he carefully navigated around the trash and shit his Nana hoarded, reaching down to scoop up a plant pot that had been knocked down (again). He placed it a little further back onto its original spot, rubbing his hands together to get the dirt off his fingers after shovelling it all back into place.

He couldn't pick out any signs of life in the house, but figured his aunt was either tucked away in a corner or something or her stacks of collectibles had finally toppled over on top of her and she was dead or something. "Nana? Are you awake?"

A cup whizzed over him, missing his head by at least three feet. Ah, the kitchen then.

"There's nothing in the house for you to steal! Get out of here, I'm calling the police!"

"Calm down—" Kenta made a face as the little old lady shuffled as fast her her legs could carry her across the kitchen, running from him. How the hell she could navigate amongst all this trash was beyond him. Temper short today, on account of the nose punching, he really didn't want to fucking deal with this today. "It's just me, _you know who I am_."

Without looking, she shuffled after. "No I don't! Go away!"

"You're being unreasonable," he hissed, following after her in a few easy strides. He caught the lamp before it fell, cursing after her. "Why would I want to rob this _drump?_ You never throw _anything out_."

Her head snapped over to him, and she narrowed her eyes behind the dish-wide glasses that rested on her face. With the low light, her face seemed to glow, and her eyes took him him, recognizing and uncomprehending at the same time, because she was a crazy old lady off her fucking meds. "You're not my niece."

Kenta rolled his eyes, not amused. "I'm your _nephew_ , use your fucking glasses, and get over yourself."

"No, _you_ —" She cast a gnarled hand at the point above his heart, where his Jinchūriki seal was. "—are not my nephew. Get out of this house. _Leave me alone_."

This wasn't the first time she had said that. It wasn't. But somehow it just added to the shit that he had dealt with today. Kenta groaned. "You're out of your mind—why are you always like this now? It's not like I have anywhere else to _go_."

"Get your cursed demon hide outta my house!" She hissed, wrenching her hand back and padding further and faster away from him, her shawl trailing behind her.

Now that she recognized him, something keenly burned in the pit of Kenta's stomach. He couldn't deny the fact that she was right.

He didn't chase after her. He watched her slam her bedroom door behind her, sighing when another plant pot got knocked over from the force. She had surprising strength for an old lady. It was always the plants that got the worst of it.

"The Clozapine is next to the bed, you stupid old hag!" She probably couldn't hear him anyway. "Right next to the Respect-Kenta-Juice….bitch."

Ten minutes later he was pulling on his shoes again and heading out the door. The place stunk of mothballs and old lady musk anyway—he wasn't running away. They had a mission out of the country next week and he had to stock up on soldier pills and shit, the market was probably still open. It didn't matter if he just came from there and using this as an excuse to leave the apartment, it wasn't like he was _wanted there_ anyway.

Opening the door, the old fucker from before was still waiting outside, meditating, and a part of Kenta just wanted to scream. Another part just deeply wanted to slam the door on him again. Maybe this time he'd get lucky and avoid any bullshit this stupid adult was trying to rope him into. Kenta could Only Fucking Hope.

But no, he didn't actually want to stay inside. He had drugs to buy, and pointy weapons to play with.

Breaking his seiza, Roshi opened his mouth to say something.

Kenta cut him off before he could even start. "I'm not interested."

"You haven't even heard what I'm going to say," the fossil argued, frowning at him as Kenta easily darted around him and made a break for the market.

What did these old fuckers even want with him? Why couldn't they solve their own fucking problems? Why was it always him they sought out?

The dinosaur pursued him, relentless. "These are stressful times for you—"

"Yeah, no freaking way. You picked that up from my Aura, my Chi? My ~chakras~? Ohh, incredible, you must be someone important." Kenta ducked bewteen a couple and tried to shake him, no no avail. "I don't care what you're going to say, I'm fucking busy, alright?"

"Not even if it means a better understanding of the beast inside you?" Roshi called after him, stopping.

"My inner beast, what a _joke_." Kenta scoffed, turning to him. "What is this, some sort of teen drama? I'm not a fucking werewolf. Go bark up someone else's tree and leave me _alone_."

"I mean, the transformation is more of a cloak—"

"I'm not transforming into a fucking dolphin horse, okay? Take your furry shit somewhere else, thanks."

"I could teach you how to avoid it."

Kenta hesitated for a second, before—his common fucking sense kicked in, because he already knew everything, and Ōnoki signed his death warrant, so he'd really rather focus on having his small petty revenge against the kage instead of finding his ~Inner Tranquility~ and Taming The Beast Inside him. That kind of bullshit wasted time.

He'd be better off getting trampled by the Gobi directly than talking to this loser, _whoever_ he was. Someone irrelevant as fuck probably.

"I'll pass. Fucking go host a sermon or something if you want to pass on some enlightenment. I'd sure there's other suckers out there willing to drink your kool-aid."

"You may not be able to stand on your own, son," called out the monk, further away as Kenta walked away from him. "It's good to have allies sometimes."

Kenta really couldn't care less about what the old prick had to say about tailed beasts. "Then I'll find one on my own, definitely not in _you_."

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Suddenly he kind of regretted not listening to the old bat. Talking about the Gobi must've listened a few screws loose in the seal.

" _ **yOU mOck ThE haNd thAt IS ofFerEd to yOu…**_." A warbled, high pitched voice intoned, the weight of the vibrations coming from it beating to the sound of Kenta's heartbeat. He could feel the sound in his chest, his ribs. " _ **yOu trUly ArE thE fOoL oF yOUr bLoOdLinE….**_ "

"Yeah? And what's it to _you?_ " Kenta called out to the darkness, his voice carrying further than his eyes could see. He was in a place of nothingness, of darkness. There was nothing but fog and the knowing fact that something out there was looming, watching him. His instincts told him to run, but there was no place to hide. "If I'm a fool then you're a fucking coward. Come out and face me!"

" _ **I oWe YoU noThing…**_ " Spoke the voice . At this point Kenta was getting real tired of this bullshit, and he started waking in the loudest direction the sound, aimless as it echoed around him. " _ **pERsUe AnD yOu WiLl Perish… aS iT haS bEeN FoR aLL oF yOur KiNd….. yOu nEveR Do chAnGe…..**_ "

"Are you accusing me of learning? You really don't know me then." He turned in a circle, searching for the gigantic fucking horse dolphin that had to be somewhere, because it was too damn obvious that was what this was, but he couldn't see a fucking thing.

Actually, he didn't even have his glasses on, so how the hell could he see at all?

" _ **yOU seE wHAt You dESire, NothINg FurthEr….. I wOulD PItY YoU, iF yOu deSerVed aS mUch…..**_ "

"Bla, bla, I've heard it all before. Do you have anything useful to say?"

Kenta sat down on the white-grassy field that he was wandering through, looking down at his hands in crystal clarity. Funny how things worked in the beast real or whatever, he looked bigger than his stupid little kid body did. More normal. He could get used to it….

"How does this usually go?" he huffed. Cooperation was like, a thing for them, right? Fine, whatever, if it meant he could start healing the broken noses Kurotsuchi ket fucking giving him. Being bros with a horse could be _easy_. He just needed some sugar cubes or something, horses were like giant, stupid pigs. "We need to tolerate each other if you want your freedom. We're probably going to die in a couple years anyway, might as well strike up some sort of agreement.."

" _ **I dID nOt caLL yOu HerE fOr A dEaL…..**_ " rumbled the Bijuu, its voice pitched like an angry squeal.

Kenta raised an eyebrow. "Then what's your damage?"

" _ **I wILl nOt bOw tO yoU…**_ _**YoU wILl NevER REceIVe mY heLp… nO maTtEr whAt yOU mAy tHinK.**_ "

"Is _that_ it? You're delusional." he said, his voice tight. "Then we'll die. Is that what you want?"

" **ThEN** _ **pERIsh**_ **.** "

As the steam and mist faded, the ground beneath him moved—clouds parting and sinking below him, until he realized it wasn't down, but _up_ , as the Gobi stood. In a single motion, it shook its coat, dislodging Kenta from its fur and shaking him off its back, the wind whistling pas him as he fell—

The creature's chest rumbled like a stormcloud, and this time Kenta could see its eyes, the red sclera, the pulled flesh around its mouth. He could see the beast's attempt at what teeth might look like, if chakra could have a mouth and eyes and looked like a _living creature at all_ —

Its head dove towards him as he neared the ground, its mouth opened up, unmoving as its words filled his head. He could feel it's anger, its hatred coiling inside him as he fell, sick and vile like a leeshing parasite.

The steam rolling of its coat was palpable, and he was blasted in the face by it's hot breath, its teeth circling around him as the ground inched ever closer.

" **nOw** _ **bE GonE**_."

And then its jaws snapped tight, and it fucking _ate him._

* * *

ᛜ

* * *

Kenta woke the night before their mission sweating, afraid to go back to sleep.

This would be the last time he ever spoke to his Bijuu. It stayed true to its word. He wouldn't be able to use its chakra no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe the old man had been right. Maybe he was a liiiiiittle bit fucked.

...well. Now he could add the Gobi to list of people who signed his death warrant.

Things just got better and better.

* * *

ᛜ


End file.
